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British comedian, producer, writer, director, and composer who is widely regarded as the greatest comic artist of the screen and one of the most important figures in motion-picture history. Early life and career Chaplin was named after his father, a British music-hall entertainer. He spent his early childhood with his mother, the singer Hannah Hall,...

New Zealand-born British physicist considered the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday (1791–1867). Rutherford was the central figure in the study of radioactivity, and with his concept of the nuclear atom he led the exploration of nuclear physics. He won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1908, was president of the Royal Society (1925–30)...

English naturalist whose scientific theory of evolution by natural selection became the foundation of modern evolutionary studies. An affable country gentleman, Darwin at first shocked religious Victorian society by suggesting that animals and humans shared a common ancestry. However, his nonreligious biology appealed to the rising class of professional...